This application is based upon and claims the benefit of priority of Japanese Patent Applications No. H.9-237074 and No. H.9-237075 both filed on Sep. 2, 1997, the contents of which are incorporated herein by reference.
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a data retrieving and displaying system and more particularly to a system for ambiguously retrieving and displaying a destination or a name of an objective in a navigation system.
2. Description of Related Art
A navigation system mounted in a car or the like for providing a guidance by displaying on a map a present position detected by the GPS (Global Positioning System) or the like, a destination or a position of an objective (building, facility, park and the like) set by a user and a route from the present position to the destination or the objective is widely used.
In such a navigation system, there is a case when the user is unable to specify the destination or the position of the objective on the map in setting the destination or the objective because the user is unfamiliar with the locality around the destination or the objective even though the user knows the name of the destination or the objective. Then, in order to enable the user to set the destination or the objective even in such a case, a data retrieving system which can retrieve positional data of the destination or the objective on the map using the name of the destination or the objective inputted by the user has been put into practical use.
The name of the destination or the objective is often called not by its official name but by its brief name in general. For instance, when an official name of a building is xe2x80x9c◯X◯◯-◯X Buildingxe2x80x9d, there is a case when it is abbreviated and called as xe2x80x9c◯X Buildingxe2x80x9d. Therefore, in order to enable the user to set the destination or the objective even when the user does not know the official name thereof, there is the data retrieving system provided with a function of specifying the destination or the objective by retrieving not only the official name but also its brief name by utilizing ambiguous retrieval and by listing those names on a display to let the user select a desired name among them.
In the conventional data retrieving system being not provided with the function of the ambiguous retrieval, for instance, a name of a destination or an objective xe2x80x9cABCDE ABCMNxe2x80x9d cannot be retrieved unless input is made sequentially from the head character of the head word (xe2x80x9cABCDExe2x80x9d) like xe2x80x9cA-B-C-D-E- -A-B- . . . xe2x80x9d.
In contrary to that, in the data retrieving system provided with the function of the ambiguous retrieval, the name of xe2x80x9cABCDE ABCMNxe2x80x9d can be retrieved even when input is made sequentially from the head character of the second word (xe2x80x9cABCMNxe2x80x9d) like xe2x80x9cA-B-C-M- . . . xe2x80x9d.
In the data retrieving system utilizing the ambiguous retrieval, not only the name xe2x80x9cABCDE ABCMNxe2x80x9d is registered as a body word set but also the second word (xe2x80x9cABCMNxe2x80x9d) of the name is also registered as a duplicate word set. The duplicate word set is registered in association with the body word set.
According to the data retrieving system utilizing the ambiguous retrieval, even when the character string indicating the official name is not inputted, body word sets and duplicate word sets including the inputted character string are retrieved and displayed abreast on a display. For instance, when the official name xe2x80x9cABCDE ABCMNxe2x80x9d is to be retrieved and when three characters of xe2x80x9cABCxe2x80x9d are inputted as a retrieving character string, both of the body word sets and the duplicate word sets including the retrieving character string are retrieved. Accordingly, not only the body word sets retrieved but also the body word sets associated with the duplicate word sets retrieved are displayed abreast on the display. That is, although the duplicate word sets including the retrieving character string are retrieved, the duplicate word sets themselves are not displayed and the body word sets associated with the duplicate word sets are displayed.
At this time, in the prior art data retrieving system utilizing the ambiguous retrieval, there is a case when the same names are displayed in duplication on the display depending on the retrieving character string. As a result, since a number of names displayed on the display increases due to the duplicate display, it is hard for the user to discriminate a desired name and it takes time to select the desired name among the plurality of names.
Further, the prior art data retrieving system utilizing the ambiguous retrieval has another problem that when there exist many objectives having the same name, it is very difficult for the user to select a desired objective because the system merely lists all of them on the display. For instance, when five-hundred chain stores having a name of xe2x80x9c◯◯xcex94xe2x80x9d are registered in the data retrieving system and when the user inputs the name of xe2x80x9c◯◯xcex94xe2x80x9d, the five hundreds of same names xe2x80x9c◯◯xcex94xe2x80x9d are just displayed on the display. As a result, the user is unable to distinguish the desired objective.
Further, when the user inputs the name xe2x80x9c◯◯xcex94xe2x80x9d to retrieve a name xe2x80x9c◯◯xcex94Xxe2x80x9d which is similar to the name xe2x80x9c◯◯xcex94xe2x80x9d, the name xe2x80x9c◯◯xcex94Xxe2x80x9d is displayed together with the five-hundred names of xe2x80x9c◯◯xcex94xe2x80x9d. Therefore, it is very difficult for the user to find and select the name xe2x80x9c◯◯xcex94Xxe2x80x9d among such a large number of names displayed on the display.
Accordingly, it is a primary object of the present invention to provide a data retrieving and displaying system in which no same name is displayed in duplication in ambiguous retrieval.
A secondary object of the present invention is to provide a data retrieving and displaying system which allows desired data to be simply and readily retrieved among data having the same name.
In order to achieve the first object of the present invention, a data retrieving and displaying system according to a first aspect of the present invention comprises a storage device, a specifying device, a retrieving device, a display device, a selecting device and a display inhibiting device. The storage device stores a plurality of names as body word sets and stores, as duplicate word sets, parts of the body word sets. Ambiguous retrieval data are composed of body word sets and duplicate word sets for the plurality of names. A retrieving character string is specified through the specifying device. The retrieving device retrieves both body word sets and duplicate word sets including a character string that coincides with the retrieving character string from the ambiguous retrieval data. The display device displays the body word sets retrieved by the retrieving device and the body word sets in association with the duplicate word sets retrieved by the retrieving device. When there are the body word set and the duplicate word sets corresponding to an identical name among the body word sets and the duplicate word sets retrieved by the retrieving device, the selecting device selects only one among the body word set and the duplicate word sets corresponding to the identical name. Further, when there are the body word set and the duplicate word sets corresponding to the identical name, the display device inhibits the remaining of the body word set and duplicate word sets except the one selected by the selecting device from being displayed on the display device.
Therefore, according to the present invention, when the body word set and the duplicate word sets duplicated therefrom, which correspond to the identical name, are stored in the storage device, even though the ambiguous retrieval is performed by any retrieving character string, the identical name is not displayed in duplication. Accordingly, a user can readily distinguish and select a desired name without taking time when selecting the desired name among names (body word sets) tabularly displayed on the display device.
The duplicate word sets may be composed of remaining words of when words are excluded from the body word set one by one from a head word thereof. For example, when the body word set is composed of two words xe2x80x9cABCDE ABCMNxe2x80x9d, the duplicate word set may be composed of one word xe2x80x9cABCMNxe2x80x9d because the duplicate word set is formed by excluding a word one by one from a head word of the body word set. Accordingly, when a name xe2x80x9cABCDE ABCMNxe2x80x9d is to be retrieved, it may be retrieved even when input is made sequentially from the head character of the second word (xe2x80x9cABCMNxe2x80x9d) like xe2x80x9cA-B-C-M . . . xe2x80x9d, whereby the ambiguous retrieval can be utilized.
The retrieving device can retrieve the body word sets and the duplicate word sets including the character string that coincides with the retrieving character string from the ambiguous retrieval data by comparing each character composing the retrieving character string with each character composing each of the body word sets and the duplicate word sets in the ambiguous retrieval data one by one from their head character. Thereby, both the body word sets and the duplicate word sets including a character string that coincides with the retrieving character string may be retrieved steadily.
Preferably, the display device displays body word sets as they are when the body word sets are retrieved by the retrieving device. Also, the display device displays body word sets corresponding to duplicate word sets when the duplicate word sets are retrieved by the retrieving device. Thereby, the display device can display the body word set regardless of whether retrieved by the retrieving device is the body word set or duplicate word set.
Preferably, when the storage device stores a body word set and one or more duplicate word set corresponding to an identical name, in a predetermined order, the number of overlapping characters in the body and duplicate word sets is also stored in association with each of the body and duplicate word sets. The number of overlapping characters represents the number of characters of an arbitrary one of the body and duplicate word sets that match characters composing another of the body and duplicate word sets stored before the arbitrary one, from a head character thereof. When a plurality of word sets corresponding to the identical name are retrieved by the retrieving device, the selecting device selects a word set whose number of overlapping characters is smaller than the number of characters of the retrieving character string specified through the specifying device among the plurality of word sets.
As a result, even if the plurality of word sets corresponding to the identical name are retrieved by the retrieving device, only one word set can be selected from the plurality of word sets by the selecting device.
In order to achieve the above-mentioned second object of the present invention, a data retrieving and displaying system according to a second aspect of the present invention comprises a storage device, a parent data specifying device, a first retrieving device, a counting device, a display device, a child data specifying device and a second retrieving device. The storage device stores a plurality of names of objectives as parent data and a plurality of characteristics of each of the objectives as child data. The characteristics of each of the objectives are stored in the storage device in association with the name of each of the objectives. The parent data specifying device specifies at least a part of the name of the objective. The first retrieving device retrieves the names of the objectives corresponding to the name specified by the parent data specifying device from the parent data. The counting device counts a number of identical names when the first retrieving device retrieves a plurality of identical names from the parent data. The display device displays both the identical name retrieved by the first retrieving device and the number of the identical names counted by the counting device. The child data specifying device specifies an attribute of the characteristics of the objective to be retrieved. The second retrieving device retrieves a characteristic of each of the objectives having the names retrieved by the first retrieving device in accordance with the attribute specified by the child data specifying device from the child data. Then, the characteristic of each of the objectives retrieved by the second retrieving device is displayed on the display device in correspondence with the name of each of the objectives.
Therefore, according to the second aspect of the present invention, when the plurality of identical names retrieved based on the name specified by the parent data specifying device are stored in the storage device, the first retrieving device retrieves the plurality of identical names from the parent data, the counting device counts the number of the identical names and the display device displays the identical name and its number. Therefore, the user can know the number of the objectives having identical names.
Then, the second retrieving device retrieves the characteristic of each of the objectives having the identical name in accordance with the attribute specified by the child data specifying device from the child data, and the display device displays the characteristic of each of the objectives. Therefore, when there exist the plurality of objectives having the identical name, the characteristic of each of the objectives belonging to the same attribute among the plurality of characteristics of each of the objectives is tabularly displayed on the display device. Therefore, the objectives having the identical name can be distinguished by the displayed characteristics thereof. As a result, the objectives having the identical name can be distinguished and a desired objective can be simply and readily selected.
The first retrieving device may retrieve names of objectives equivalent to the name specified by the parent data specifying device and names of objectives including the specified name from the parent data. Thereby, even when an official name of an objective to be selected is unknown, a desired objective can be retrieved steadily because the names of objectives equivalent to the specified name and the names of objectives including the specified name are tabularly displayed on the display means.
It is noted that in the embodiments of the present invention described below, the characteristics of an objective stored as the child data corresponds to an addresses, map position data, and so on of the objective.
The specific nature of the invention, as well as other objects, uses and advantages thereof, will clearly appear from the following description and from the accompanying drawings.